


Aftermath

by 1f_this_be_madness



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: F/M, Gen, Haymitch is helping, I promise, Mockingjay Spoilers, Peeta and Katniss are trying to figure things out, Pre-Epilogue Mockingjay, Symptoms of PTSD, and by helping I mean he's just screwing things up because Katniss won't listen to him, and he gets pissed about it, but there is hope too
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-08
Updated: 2015-11-08
Packaged: 2018-04-30 14:23:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5167103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1f_this_be_madness/pseuds/1f_this_be_madness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the disastrous events of the second District War, Katniss Everdeen is unsure how to work through her grief and pain--or even if she can.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Aftermath

**Author's Note:**

> Due to the release date of Mockingjay Part 2 fast approaching, I am on a Hunger Games trilogy kick. 
> 
> Many thanks to Suzanne Collins for creating these characters and their world.

“At least YOU’VE never been thrown by a murderer in a rose garden,” I said.

“But getting hijacked from the truth of things—with no grip on reality or my real concrete self…” replied Peeta, trailing off, with a look of haunted anguish in his clear blue eyes; his breathing ragged, my boy with the bread came to me for comfort. Such that only I am able to give him, and only he can give me—because we know, and can never forget, what happened within and because of the Hunger Games.

Haymitch visits us whenever he can, and when he isn’t too hammered. He explains the state of Panem and what is going on in the Capitol. Peeta listens raptly, but I really don’t care.

“Are you with us, sweetheart?” Haymitch often asks, first curious, amused, frustrated, irritated, impatient, and then sardonic. “This has to do with you—”

“No, it doesn’t,” I say firmly. “Not anymore.”

After a while he doesn’t ask, either because he’s given up or truly understands my reasoning. Peeta has been used, too, so he never pushes me; but when I do speak, he is always there to listen, answer, and really care about what I say.

Though Peeta is still haunted by memories of his hijacked antics, they are displayed no more. Instead, stacks of paintings multiply in his studio and around our house. It is still almost impossible for me to look at them—but I do, for Peeta’s sake as well as my own. Somehow I must learn to cope. Haymitch has drink, Peeta paint, and Finnick had his rope…I alone still wake screaming and sweating from horrible nightmares. Yet it is an immense comfort to have Peeta always beside me to take away the pain—and sometimes as he holds me in the dark—sometimes I sing.


End file.
